Misfits in Konoha
by ShatteredRhapsody
Summary: She was being the honorable student. All she wanted was the zanbatou back, but leave it to Konoha to blow it all out of proportion. With some help from the Akatsuki and a very, VERY unwilling Kakashi, will she ever succeed in her noble quest? OC


_Misfits in Konoha_

_Prologue_

She sat on her haunches before two graves, surrounded by a haze of incense and cigarette smoke. There was a faint slide of metal on metal as she shifted onto her knees to properly bow down and pay her respects to her fallen comrades. She could tell by the lack of zanbatou in the ground that they had been deceased for quite a while, and that someone had taken the large sword. Sitting up, she lit another cigarette and took a slow drag. "Geez sensei, you've been dead and at peace for how long, but I can still feel your anger. It was just a sword." Brown eyes winced as she imagined him scowling down at her insolence, just like he had done when she was younger. Rolling her eyes, she exhaled with a smile. "Don't make that face at me. I'll find out what happened to it." She'd heard rumors about the little Uchiha and his lackeys roaming around after the remaining Jinchuuriki. As she stood to leave and remove her staff from the ground, she faintly heard Haku's gentle voice as if it were carried along an icy breeze. _"Be careful."_

Dusting off the dirt from her hakama, she adjusted her brown cloak and bowed once more. "Quit your worrying, Haku chan. And stop mumbling to yourself, sensei. It's very unbecoming." With a saucy wink, she turned to head back down the faded path back onto the Great Naruto Bridge. It was time to visit the bridge's namesake in the village of prima donnas, wussies, perverts, and weirdoes: Konohagakure no Sato.

**A/N: OH GOD, WHAT WAS I THINKING?!**

**Disclaimer: We've been over this before: It's not mine.**

_Chapter 1_

_Old Memories_

Ren had lucked out at just the right time. A caravan of merchants and performers need a bodyguard while they traveled to Konoha for the Fire Festival, and guess who got the job?

It wasn't her.

Well, not at first, but like Zabuza sensei used to say: _"Sometimes you just got to kill the competition. Literally. And don't get caught. And don't brag about it because you'll get arrested again…"_ He just had so many things to tell her. Too bad it didn't really matter. Oh, the irony! The merchants had hired a second bodyguard, and Ren was grateful that she didn't have to kill this one. But it wasn't like she even _wanted_ this one dead.

She didn't need to see the cloak to know who it was—she knew those things were reversible so the pattern wasn't too obvious—but one look at his hair color made her lips twitch into a smile. Well, well, well… "If it isn't Dei-Dei himself," she commented from behind him. "Still looking like a woman, I see."

He turned with such a dramatic flair that she was tempted to giggle. "Ren chan. Funny seeing you here, yeah. Any idea what happened to Toyuki, yeah?" Toyuki was the first bodyguard who got hired, but he never showed up when it was time to go. Deidara could tell by the way her eyes gleamed that Ren was somehow, if not directly involved, with the mercenary's disappearance.

"Aw, come on Dei-Dei," she peeked at him from under her long-ish side-swept bangs, "it's not like I chopped him up into little pieces and spread his remains in the local crops. How could you think so low of me?" Blowing air up at her dark locks, she flashed him a sly grin and skipped ahead to chat with some of the merchants, knowing without seeing that he was shaking his head at her foolishness.

It still unnerved him that she was just 19 years old, a mercenary, and still ridiculously childish. But as for what she said she did to Toyuki…he wouldn't put it past her. In their line of work, they didn't have the luxury of just killing a man and letting the body be found. Not unless Zetsu was hungry and nearby, but since the overgrown plant wasn't omnipotent, the bodies had to be disposed a different way. Most of them just burned the corpses, or tied them to boulders and dropped them into lakes. But leave it to Ren to do something conventional for nature.

But seeing her now, it was nice to know that she hadn't really changed. Back when they had first met, he doubted that she would live past seventeen. She wasn't serious enough and was far too playful. He knew enough from rumors that she had gotten captured well over a dozen times, but luckily the charges never stuck. Most likely because no one could believe that a girl who looked so young could commit murder. What with her wild raven locks that grew well past Itachi's own length of hair, and those big brown puppy-dog eyes. He'd fallen for her tricks many times because of those eyes.

"Dei-Dei, move it!" He would have been knocked unconscious if he hadn't ducked at the last second. The bamboo staff that was usually strapped to her back was a half inch away from his ear. He could hear a faint metallic clang and smirked; she hadn't changed at all.

"Quit calling me that, yeah!" He mock-scowled as he shoved the staff away from him and stood to loom over her. "What's the rush, yeah?" He couldn't sense any other chakra except their own so what had her so worked up?

"The performers are going to rehearse! Please go with me to watch? Please, Dei-Dei!" She really wanted to see it. She'd heard that they juggled fire using chakra and it just fascinated her to no end. It would be a great trick to use for her future jobs. He let out an exaggerated sigh and she knew that she had won him over.

Sucker.

_Three hours later…_

Ren sat in Deidara's lap, scowling with red, puffy and watery eyes from what she claimed had nothing to do with crying, but were from her allergies. He tried not to look smug as he gently rubbed burn salve onto her raw hands and found himself struggling not to say "I told you so," because he knew this would happen…

_~Flashback~_

"_You realize that it took them, the professionals, _years_ to do this without hurting themselves, yeah? What makes you think—"_

_She waved him off. "Oh, hush. I have excellent chakra control—"_

"—_that _you_," he continued with an annoyed air about him, "A girl from Mist, could handle fire so easily, yeah?"_

"_It can't be that difficult to—MEDIC! MY HANDS!" She broke off into a wail of hysterics._

_~End Flashback~_

All fun and games aside, her occasional sniffle was starting to get to him. "Does it still hurt, yeah?" he asked as he gently tightened the bandages on her hands. They were lucky that the performers carried burn salve in their First-Aid Kit; he knew how important a ninja's hands were. Hell he would secretly break down and cry if his hands got fried. Not that he had before. Stupid Kisame and his equally stupid need to deep-fry everything… "Oi, Ren chan, yeah. Does it still hurt?"

"For the love of Kami and Jashin sama, will you please shut up?" She was not in the mood to talk. Whatever was in that salve penetrated the skin and was trying to knock her out cold. According to the performers, if she fell asleep her body would become addicted to the herbs that were used to heal her.

"Well that's not a nice thing to say to the one who's taking care of you, yeah." He lightly pinched one of her fingers to prove his point and received an elbow to the ribs as her reply. Deciding to changed the subject, he wrapped his arms around her and asked, "So why Konoha, yeah?" He expected her to say her usual reply of "why not?" as was her normal way of answering.

"Chi-Chi's brother's minion has sensei's sword. It's only right that I take it back to his resting place." She could almost feel the cold glare of Sharingan boring into the back of her head. Chi-Chi was not fond of his nick name, not one bit. According to Ki-Ki, who hated his nickname just as much, calling his partner something feminine-sounding not only took his manliness down several dozen pegs, but it practically crippled his reputation.

Deidara couldn't help but laugh. Personally, he admired her reason, but if Itachi found out that she was still calling him _that_—despite his previous threat of driving her to the brink of insanity via the Tsukuyomi—he would most likely consider hunting her down. "You do remember why you're not supposed to call him that, right?"

"Psh. Whatever. You know as well as I do that if anyone else heard this conversation, they wouldn't know who we're talking about."

Damn her logic, but she had a point. No one _would_ be the wiser. He'd have to mention this to Leader sama, but anonymously of course to avoid getting killed by the others. And yeah, they really could and would kill him.

"And let me guess _your_ reason for going to Konoha," she turned to face him with a grin that made him feel a tad bit uncomfortable, "sales for that new Icha-Icha sure is rising." She laughed at the shocked expression on his face. Bull's eye. She was dead on. Ren only knew about his obsession with the infamous smut series because she had caught him reading it during her first visit to Amegakure. That was an awkward viewing…no fifteen year old girl enjoyed watching a twenty-something Nukenin giggling behind a bright orange book.

Before he could even ask how the hell she knew that, one of the merchants yelled that they were moving out, and she was gone from his arms. "Come on, Dei-Dei! The faster we get to Konoha, the faster I can get information on the Uchiha brat and you can buy your porn!" she was off like a bat out of hell, making her way to the front of the caravan in less than a minute.

"It's not porn, yeah! It's—"

"Art? I know you think that's what it is!" she yelled back, leaving him with the urge to both lecture her and laugh with her.

They made it to a rest point with almost no trouble at all and just in time for dinner. Dinner that was just as eventful as ever:

She set his cloak on fire.

He supposed that he should have counted his blessings before growling at her how the first cloak was free, but the one she wrecked would come out of his next pay-check. She did the worst thing imaginable—no, she didn't castrate him. It was worse. He had stupidly forgotten just who had trained her, and barely heard the slide of steal against wood. That's when his head felt much too light and a waterfall of blond hair fell before his eyes.

She'd cut his hair. His beautiful, gorgeous _hair._ Instead of freaking out about it, he sighed and just accepted the fact that only four inches of it was gone. He needed a trim anyway.

They stood in one of the gardens of the Inn that their employers had completely rented out. Now was as good a time as any to chat and catch up with his friend. His friend who was burning the remnants of his gloriously gold locks that lay on the ground. She looked up at him, an eyebrow arched as if daring him to protest. They both knew they couldn't risk this much DNA getting into the wrong hands. Sure they weren't in the same organization, but even Nukenin had rules. The Golden rule was to never get caught, and if you were caught, everything was fair game to get yourself out. That included erasing all evidence that you and whomever you were travelling with, was ever there at all.

"I thought you hated Konoha, yeah." He blurted out and was mildly surprised to watch her as she threw her head back and laughed.

"What the hell ever gave you that idea?" But really, who didn't hate that village? Excluding its own people, of course. No, wait…

"You're history with them, yeah. Didn't they kill your family in a raid—"

"Deidara," no nick name; she was serious. "That village is chock-full of idiots and hypocrites. Really, who haven't they 'accidentally' killed on false information? Look at what happened to Leader sama." She knew that Akatsuki had a vague retelling of their leader's past, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise to him.

"How do you know about that, yeah? You're not even a part of the organization, yeah." He was curious; Akatsuki never gave away certain information unless Leader sama specifically told them to.

"Remember the time I had to talk to Leader sama and Konan san?"

He snorted at that. "Which time? The time you convinced the new recruits that the sushi they were eating was really Kisame or the time you turned Zetsu into a dog by bribing him with treats?" Both times had both amused and gave a massive headache to the Akatsuki. The first situation was merely burnt salmon sushi dyed blue with food coloring—this occurred when Kisame left early for a long-term mission. The new recruits nearly went into anxiety attacks when he returned several months later. The second was just a tad bit macabre when you though about it. Ren, quite literally, trained Zetsu to behave like a dog for a few days.

It started off with her discovery of his very not-so-secret secret of actually enjoying digging tunnels to gather information. She threatened to exploit him—not that she really had to—by starting rumors about him. At this time, it was common knowledge that she could easily cripple a shinobi's reputation with just a few choice words. He immediately gave in to her—freakin' pathetic in Deidara's opinion—and she rewarded him in the only way she knew how. She fed him pieces of people. She trained him like a fucking _dog_; she punished him by spraying him with weed killer in a squirt bottle and rewarded him with human flesh and bags of Miracle Grow. She was a threat in a whole different way, so she was supposed to be avoided at all costs. But damn her…Ren somehow got under their skins.

"Actually, I meant the time me, Haku, and sensei visited HQ and I screamed pedophile when Orochimaru said he had a special interest in Haku." That was a fun trip. Zabuza had smacked the back of her head while he shook his own, and Haku had merely stared up at her with those big innocent eyes of his and asked what a pedophile was.

"I'd heard about that, but I never believed it," Deidara mumbled under his breath before he cleared his throat. "That was years ago, yeah. You were only…what, twelve, thirteen years old, yeah?" Damn. That young and was already causing problems for the Akatsuki.

She shrugged, "That sounds about right. Anyway, Leader sama told me how many people that Konoha massacred because they were given faulty information. Then he explained how messed up it was that they would freak out when their own people—who were so guilty it was almost pathetic—would get killed. So I don't really hate it, I just have no respect for it."

That made sense. No wonder she wasn't as worked up as he thought she'd be. And from what she just told him, he was starting to look at Konoha in a new light. The village that every other village idolized as perfect, was just as jacked up as the rest of them.

**A/N: Yeah, I got nothing else to say. Except that this story is just for fun.**


End file.
